旅行的艺术:Ⅵ 壮阔-6

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由于人们习惯于把比他强大的东西称为上帝，因此当人们开始思及西奈的神灵时，并不让人觉得奇怪。这里的山和山谷让人很自然地联想到，这个地球是由人类双手以外的东西建构的，他的力量比我们所有人力量的总和还要强大。早在我们出生前他便已存在，并且在我们死后仍会一直存续下去（路旁的花朵和快餐店就很难让人联想到这点）。

Because what is mightier than man has traditionally been called God, it does not seem unusual to start thinking of a deity in the Sinai. The mountains and valleys spontaneously suggest that the planet was built by something other than our own hands, by a force greater than we could gather, long before we were born, and set to continue long after our extinction (something we may forget when there are flowers and fast-food restaurants by the roadside).

据说上帝在西奈花了很多时间，最为人们津津乐道的事件是他用了两年的时间在中原地带照顾一群脾气暴躁、经常抱怨没有食物，并且容易受到异教神祇引诱的犹太人。摩西在临终前说道：“耶和华从西奈而来。”（《申命记》，33.2）“西奈山峰烟雾一片，因为上帝在火中降临于山上，于是烟雾如同从炉子中向上升起。整座山大力震动。”（《出埃及记》）这样形容。“众百姓见雷轰、闪电，角声、山上冒烟，就都发颤，远远地站立，摩西对百姓说：‘不要惧怕，因为神降临是要试验你们……’”

God is said to have spent much time in the Sinai, most notably two years in the central region looking after a group of irascible Israelites, who complained about the lack of food and had a weakness for foreign gods. 'The LORD came from Sinai,' said Moses shortly before his death (Deut. 33.2). 'And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly,' explains Exodus (19.18). 'And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off … And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you … ' (ibid. 20.18-20).

然而，《圣经》的记载只是加强了西奈游人必会体验的一个印象，那就是：肯定是某个存在（或力量）有意塑造了这般景观。他一定比人还要强大，并且拥有纯粹的“自然”所不可能有的智慧。在凡夫俗子眼中，“上帝”似乎可以为这股力量正名。我们或许以为自然的力量，而非超自然的力量，一样能造就美感和充满力量的印象。然而当我们站在一个沙岩山谷中，看着山谷向上延伸耸起，像是一个巨大的祭坛，而这祭坛之上，正悬着一弯新月……目睹此景，我们还能坚持是自然造就了美感和力感吗？

But biblical history only serves to reinforce an impression that would anyway have occurred to a traveller encamped in the Sinai: an impression that some intentional being must have had a hand in this, something greater than man and with an intelligence that mere 'nature' does not possess; a 'something' for which the word God still seems, even to the secular mind, a far from unlikely appellation. The knowledge that natural rather than supernatural forces can also create beauty and an impression of power seems peculiarly ineffective as one stands before a sandstone valley rising towards what appears to be a giant altar, above which hangs a slender crescent moon.

早期描写壮阔之物的作家常把壮阔的景致和宗教联系起来：

Early writers on the sublime repeatedly connected sublime landscapes with religion:

1712年，艾迪生《论想象的乐趣》:

Joseph Addison, On the Pleasures of the Imagination, 1712:

“广阔的空间让我思考到了一个无所不能的神。”

A vast space naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being.'

1739年，格雷《信札》:

Thomas Gray, Letters, 1739:

“有些景象能让无神论者心生敬畏，相信上帝的存在，这根本无需任何论证。”

There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief without the help of any other argument.'

1835年，柯尔 [8] 《论美国之风光》:

Thomas Cole, Essay on American Scenery, 1835:

“这些孤绝之景不是出自自然之手，上帝才是它们真正的创造者——上帝。这是他完美无瑕之作，让人思考永恒之物。”

Amid those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, the associations are of God the creator they are his undefiled works, and the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.'

1836年，埃默森《自然》：

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836:

“自然界最崇高的职责，便是作为上帝创造之奇观出现。”

The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God.'

西方人为壮阔之景所吸引，正好发生在传统的上帝信仰式微之时。这并不是偶然的。这些景观仿佛使游人体验到一股超然之感，而这种体验是他们在城市和已开发的乡间无法获得的。这些自然景观让人们和超然的力量保持情感上的联系，同时他们也无需再苟同于圣经文本和宗教团体中越来越具体却越来越不可信的论点，因此他们获得了自由。

It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane. It is as if these landscapes allowed travellers to experience transcendent feelings that they no longer felt in cities and the cultivated countryside. The landscapes offered them an emotional connection to a greater power, even as they freed them of the need to subscribe to the more specific and now less plausible claims of biblical texts and organized religions.